Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/14/canadian-tech-firms-will-have.html
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One small silver lining for Canada here. This will have to be offset by the tearing up of NAFTA, making it harder to sell products and services to the US (our largest trading partner).
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“H1-B” used to be a bit of a bad word here at boingboing.
All of you boingers employed in tech who are going to be angry if fewer H1-Bs are granted, please check in here and let us know about your anger.
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hashtag NOT ALL H1Bs?
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As the articles you post indicate, it’s employer abuse and exploitation of the H1-B programme that’s considered a problem here, and rightly so (not the least because it opened the door to exploitation of native-born employees). If fewer of those visas are granted it will be because the government tightens up on those abuses, but ending the programme entirely is xenophobic nonsense that will damage the country in the long term.
If that turns out to be one of the things that spurs Canadians to further prioritise the knowledge economy and tech industries at a level comparable to resource extraction, that’s a good thing for them however one looks at it. Canada and especially Ontario will need to offset the likely effects of the new US administration’s brain-dead protectionism.
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I’m sure there will be some exception for Canada. NAFTA-based anger is exclusively directed to our Southern neighbors.
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US corn export has decimated the Mexican farm community. Cancelling NAFTA would be great for Mexican farmers and would anger the red state farmers in the US…they just don’t know it yet. As far as vehicle production goes, Trump’s proposed export tax would likely increase the price of American cars manufactured south of the border. How will Bubba feel when he realizes that the Chevy Silverado pickup truck just jumped in price by 25%?
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Why assume that? Has anything about the Trump candidacy been rational? I am making no assumptions, except that the few concrete proposals that he has made will be things he attempts to follow through on.
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“We shouldn’t disallow immigration” and “We shouldn’t disallow immigration by people who are not already so wealthy and educated enough that immigration provides only a marginal improvement to their quality of life” are not actually contradictory statements.
How much time per week would you say you spend inventing spurious implications of hypocrisy like this?
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Canadian tech firms? Electric moose are a real thing? Gadzooks!
Anyway… it’s highly unlikely H1-B immigration will be curtailed (especially as America produces a youthful, participation trophy-powered product which seems to perpetually return to grad school rather than actually enter the work force). And even if it were curtailed tech companies will simply colonize other places in other parts of the world with their campuses and recruits.
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True when you expand scope to include children of immigrants. Worth noting also is why people come to the US to start businesses. But let’s not confuse an outrage with facts.
No true on either count. Oil needs lots of brains and darn few guns. But again, I think we’re not concerned with facts.
Yet it still lacks financial infrastructure, deep funding markets, wide/deep talent pools, etc. There I go again…
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“The oil industry doesn’t need a lot of big brains: at its root, oil is a bunch of holes in the ground, surrounded by guns.”
I take exception to that. That might have been when they dug ditches to extract naturally surfacing oil at Baku…
Nowadays, everything about oil exploration and extraction is incredible expensive, and oil is not found or extracted by chance.
They, hydrocarbon and associated industries employ, or sponsor or collaborate with some of the best natural sciences, applied research and engineering brains in the world. Using very expensive, complicated technology, backed, controlled and informed by some of the best computing power available too. For 6 decades going now.
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There is not now nor has there ever been a shortage of tech workers in the U.S. There has only ever been a shortage of companies willing to pay a reasonable rate for the talent they need. When you can make more selling TVs than you can working tech support, you’re going to sell TVs no matter how much you paid for your education.
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Yes, but the abuse was never going to be addressed. The tech companies made their bed on this issue. If they hadn’t abused it, your argument would hold more water.
It is well documented that Bubba has no knowledge of cause and effect.
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Not a lot.
I do spend some time wondering how the working poor in this country are benefited by allowing large numbers of semi-skilled people to immigrate.
The working poor generally don’t have the skills for the jobs anyways. The whole reason outsourcing to India is for skilled workers is because the places in the US where labor is cheap doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the workforce they want - and India does. It’s almost like the United States is staggeringly behind in education.
But, like all federal programs, the answer is to close these abuses it’s to burn it all to the ground. That won’t cause any issues whatsoever /s
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